>> charlie: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with julianne moore, the actress who stars in "still alice." >> i think that's what's great about acting is that you have -- it forces you all the time to put yourself in someone else's shoes and say, you know, what's most universal? what do i understand that i know this other person understands? how do i enter into that life and try the understand it? >> we conclude with robert battle, artistic director of the alvin ailey dance theater. >> this company, when we think about arts and education before it became somewhat of a buzz word to rays funds, i was a mission for alvin ailey that everybody had a seat at the table. he wanted this to connect with all people, that it wasn't a highbrow art form. so he believed in that, and i think that spirit judith jamison

carried -- >> charlie: and you carried. yes. >> charlie: julianne moore and robert battle, when we continue. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: julianne moore has always disappeared into her roles but perhaps never more so than in her new film called "still alice." she plays a linguistics professor confronted with early

onset alzhemer's disease. the magazine writes moore guides us through the tragic arc of how it must feel to disappear through one's own eyes, patriciaing one of her most powerful performance also. the trail for "still alice." >> welcome, dr. alice howland (applause) >> thank you. i hope to convince you that by observing these baby steps into the... into -- >> where the hell were you? i hope you enjoyed that because you completely blew our dinner plans. >> i need to talk to you. i have something wrong with me. >> what's going on? oh, boy... you going to break up or -- no. i have alzhemer's disease. early onset. >> what? i can see the words hanging in front of me, and i can't reach them and i don't know who

i am and i don't know what i'm going to lose next. scope. millennium. hedge hog. i'd like to see you go to college. >> you can't use your situation to just get me to do anything you wasn't me to. >> why can't ei? it's not fair. don't have to be fair. i'm your mother. i hate this is happening to me. >> but we have to keep the important things in our life going. >> merry christmas. we have to try or we're going to go crazy. >> i'm going to get the last year out of myself. >> please don't say that. i am not suffering. i am struggling. struggling to be a part of things, stay connected to who i once was. to live in the moment, i tell myself, is really all i can do. live in the moment.

>> i spoke with julianne moore earlier this year in new york. here is that conversation. >> there's a lot of buzz about this film. you went to toronto with the film and all of a sudden there was no distributor and now there's a distributor because there was a sense of that this was a really special role. >> oh, thank you. >> charlie: and that it was the right actress at the right time for the right character. >> well, we felt so fortunate. i mean, when you go to a film festival without a distributor, you never know what's going to happen. we had a 4:30 screening on a monday which was not particularly auspicious. so you go hoping people will see the movie and respond to it. when we all walked out afterwards and heard the response from the audience, we were so delighted. >> charlie: we have a chance. yeah, we felt like we had a chance. >> charlie: tell me about the film and your character. >> well, the character's name is

alice howland, and she is a 50-year-old professor of linguistics at columbia university and she's been married since she was quite young in her early 20s and has three adult children. she started having children very young as well. she starts noticing little slips in her memory and doesn't mention it to her husband or anyone. gradually begins to realize something serious is going on. she goes to a neurologist and is diagnosed with ear early onset t 50. >> charlie: that means what? when you're diagnosed with alzheimer's under age 65, it's considered early onset -- what's another word for it, too -- i'll say early onset alzheimer's. it's generally a different, more potent form of the disease, sometimes faster acting, so she is completely compromised at thatponent in her life. she ends up having to quit her teaching position, spends time

with her husband, dealing with her children and she is in cognitive decline pretty rapidly. >> charlie: so you have there the arc of a character. >> yeah. and about, you know, who she, is what her essential self is, you know, who are we when we lose how we define ourselves. this is someone who's primarily been defined by her intellect and she's questioning about who she is when that's no longer her strong point. >> charlie: and what do i do when i can no longer do what i used to do. >> yes, how does she present herself, fight the decline and preserve her relationships. >> when i was a little girl, second grade, my teacher told me butterflies don't live a very long time, they live, like, a month or something. i was so upset and i went home and told my mother. she says, yeah, but, you know, they have a nice life. they have a really beautiful life. >> charlie: and how did you prepare? >> it was pretty expensive.

i was so struck by the generosity of everyone i spoke to. i spoke with the national alzheimer's association and they put me in touch with three women i skyped with across the nation and i talked with them about their experience. one is a woman who was diagnosed at 45. she looks like me. she ran an o.r. she started noticing when having difficulty learning a computer program. >> charlie: diagnosed at 45? 45. i spoke to them and went to mount sinai and talked to researchers and clinicians. i took the memory test they give to people when they come in wondering what's going on. my results were normal, thankfully. then i went to the new york alzheimer's association and talked to people in support groups there, some women who were unbelievably helpful. when i asked them what they wanted to see depicted, what wouldn't i know --

>> charlie: what did they say? they talked about the isolation, how difficult it was to find people who understood what was happening, the feeling of people not knowing who they were because people who didn't know them when they were so-called normal functioning didn't feel like they understood how to communicate. there was one woman who said she had always been so defined by her ability with language and her intellect, once it was gone, it was difficult for her to speak to people when they didn't treat her as someone who had possessed that intellect. so what i came away with was how hard people worked to communicate and to kind of maintain where they were. it's not that sense of fading away. people don't fade away. they continue to kind of move forward, i think. >> charlie: and then there are terrible moments when someone living with alzheimer's can't

even recognize a child. >> yes. >> charlie: friends of mine said it was the worst moment of their life. >> it's really awful. i don't think there's anything people fear more than the lack of recognition. the interesting thing to me is it's not just about memory loss. there is a different kind of neurological reaction. people have spatial issues. they may not understand which way a doorknob turns. a sense of dislocation. there are many symptoms we really don't know a lot about. >> charlie: requires a sense of empathy, doesn't it? >> yeah. >> charlie: someone once said you have empathy. i think it was your husband. >> did he? >> charlie: yes. he said, she's got empty. >> i think that's what's great about acting is that you have -- it forces you all the time to put yourself in someone else's shoes and say, you know, what is most universal? what do i understand that i know this other person understands? so how do i enter into that life and try to understand it?

i went to a long-term care facility and i was sitting outside a singing circle and the window was open next to me and the woman in front of me turned around, was a patient there, and she said, you better get out of the draft. i said, no, i'm okay. because she moved out of the draft. i ran into her daughter and told her and she said, that's my mom, she's always worrying about other people. what was interesting was seeing how much that woman was like herself, she was worried about people getting out of the draft. >> charlie: it's a bit of action, too. >> yes. >> charlie: you watch the film and understand what it's like living with alzheimer's and at the same time one of the executive producers maria shriver -- >> yes, she has quite a bit of experience with alzheimer's in her family and i think has made it a mission to educate people about it and raise awareness and hopefully money to fight the disease. >> charlie: also playing your husband -- >> alec baldwin.

>> charlie: i'm told that was your idea. >> it was my idea. >> charlie: casting director. we had worked together on 30 rock and i adored working with him. i would get offered comedies and i would email him and say, would you do these with me? he would read the script and politely decloin. then he would read them and say, do you have a part with me? and i would let him read it and say it's small part and he said, i'll do it. i felt so fortunate to have him there. he has such a huge passion for life. so much vitality, so much masculinity to see somebody like that in that kind of a -- in a real marriage and in a relationship of where people have depended on each other to see a man try to hold on to that and deal with that loss, i think it's beautiful what he does. really beautiful.

>> charlie: the interesting thing about you as well is that people say you have chosen roles well. >> oh, thanks. >> charlie: here you are getting to star in -- co-star, whatever the word is, in the new hungry games. two of them coming out. mockingjay. >> part one and two. >> charlie: which is a huge film. but you have chosen films like this throughout your career, almost as if you said, this is a role i want to play. >> yeah. >> charlie: you know, this is something that i can really add value to. >> i never know what i want to play until i see it on the page, though. that's what's interesting. sometimes people will say, in your ideal world, what do you want to play? i'm, like, if i haven't read it, i don't know. but when i read something, i want to do that next. >> charlie: what was it here? that was when i saw disease from the inside from the perspective of theperson who's

offering. so often we see it from the point of view of the care take. >> charlie: it's impact on the care taker. >> yes and this was about what it means to experience this loss, how do you represent who that person is throughout all the stages of the disease. >> charlie: have you chosen well 90% of the time? >> yeah, 90% is right. there's maybe 10 or 15 where maybe i didn't choose well. >> charlie: because what happens if it doesn't work? >> if it doesn't work, for example, if i'm on the set and it's not working, i might be miserable and grumpy because there wasn't an experience i wanted to have. >> charlie: if you were grumpy on set we know what's happening. >> yes and sometimes i'm disappointed because it's not become what i wanted it to. >> charlie: do you blame yourself or the director? >> i blame myself. i feel like i'm responsible for

all my choices, my work, every situation, i think that ultimately i'm the only one who can control whether i do something or not. it's not the director's fault. >> charlie: someone said to me most of the time -- someone said to me that you are a literalist, that you really like the script. >> yeah. >> charlie: you know, people who look for the supreme court and look for the original interpretation of the founders. >> yeah. >> charlie: but you are a literalist in the sense that you like the script as written. >> yes, i do. >> charlie: because you -- unless it can be better. >> charlie: yeah. there might be times i've worked with magnificent, really great writers, and then you're, like, oh, no, no, i'm not touching this. there might be times where you work with something where the script is not fully formed, and then you say let's figure out the language. but i'm someone who's language specific. i feel every word you use means something, there's power to that and shape and meaning.

but i want to give the language that authority. it's really important to me, i think the words that people choose to express themselves. >> charlie: have you been aggressive about your career or simply let it come to you? >> i don't know that i -- well, there's not a lot that we can do in terms of control. i always say the only control an actor has is to say yes or no because you can't make someone offer you something. >> charlie: it's such a collaborative meeting. >> yes, they offer it or they don't. however, it is okay, i think, to say you want to play something. that i've done several times in my career. >> charlie: tell me the story. it's because of your children you ended up in hunger games. >> my son who's 16 now, he will be 17 in december, had, you know, read hunger games. >> charlie: he'll appreciate you saying that. >> i know, right? so he read the hunger games books when they first came out and i bought him the third one, mockingjay. i said, here's the third book in

the series you like. a couple of years later my daughter who started reading the hunger games, we were on vacation, i had nothing to read, they were playing ping-pong, and i looked around and picked up my daughter's book and tore through it. i downloaded the others on my ipad. i thought these are great. they're phenomenal political al allegory. i called my manager and told him to cast me. >> charlie: you were nominated for academy award four times, many expect five at the end of this. >> oh, thanks. >> charlie: would you test for it if they asked you? >> sure. >> charlie: did they? they didn't. they gave me the part which is nice. >> charlie: they said yes.

yeah. francis is so great, generous and so prepared and articulate. we had a meeting and i said, this is how i see her and how i'd like to see her develop because she's on the page, she's a littl little bit of a cipher i said i want to see a real political evolution with the character. he agreed with me and i got the job. my kids were so happy. >> she won't be able to handle it. the games destroyed her. >> we need to unite these people. >> she's not facing this rebellion. they'll follow her. >> charlie: your character and tim's are flu shot the main characters. >> no, they're ancillary. >> charlie: to the young stars. >> young, wonderful actors. there's something interesting about that, too. when i read the bach, i felt this is political allegory with adolescent overtones.

it comes down to idea of whether or not you have free will. >> do we, in the world, have free will. >> charlie: which is what teenagers are about. >> it's the first time they're going to be, like, i'm going to make my own choices. >> charlie: what's going to happen to me. >> am i in control and am i a moral person. >> charlie: these are all the questions. >> these are all the questions in mockingjay. >> charlie: yeah. so i think as an actor, a person, a parent, it's interesting to be in that kind of situation and to be ancillary and to know that you're representing the adult world in a sense. and that -- that was really fun, compelling. >> charlie: you actually performed with phillip see moree hoffman. >> yes, in magnolia. >> charlie: it's hard to take the loss of someone with so much talent. you can't necessarily understand their pain. >> no. >> charlie: but you can

understand the loss of such an enormous talent. >> i think we were all devastated. i think everybody was completely devastated by his passing. he was to tremendously talented and so empathetic and so really special and clearly -- i mean, in retrospect, clearly in pain which is heartbreaking. i felt we all wished there was something that could have been done. >> charlie: or you could have reached out and made a difference. >> yeah. >> charlie: when you look at your life, why did you become an actress? >> because i like to read. because i love to read. >> charlie: the curiosity coming from books led you to film or acting? >> you know, i think i was -- i love roading because i like stories about people. i like the feeling of being inside the book. i like the transformative thing that literature does. when i started acting i felt, when it's working, when it's the best it can be, you feel like you're inside the book.

you're, like, i'm in the story, in this little bubble, and you're telling stories of who we are as human beings, what we can accomplish, ho how we can help h other and damage each other. behavior is fascinating. >> charlie: i'll tell you a story about me. >> okay. >> charlie: it's something about you that makes you think you may have gone through the same thing. >> yeah. >> charlie: my parents had a country store and i had to work there. but it was a world of adults. so you had to understand their world, tuck to them about their world and the most important thing you could do is ask smart questions because you didn't have experience they cared a lot about. but they cared about politics and sports and goes pip and what's going on in the community. >> like you tell me what's important. >> charlie: yes. it seems to me, someone, your dad was in the military, a judge? >> uh-huh. my mother was a psychiatric social worker. >> charlie: they moved around 20-something times. so you have to adjust to different circumstances? >> different people, different

cultures, different whatever. so, yeah, i think you're always thinking, like, who are you? you know, what do you like? you learn that that behavior is not character. >> charlie: and you become observational, too. you observe with a keen eye. >> yeah. but i like to know, like you were talking to people in the store, i was, like, what's going on with you? where are you from? what's that accent? are you married? >> charlie: you never become unpopular by asking people questions about themselves. >> that's true, right? >> charlie: i learned that early on. >> that's great. >> charlie: even true about teenagers. people, when you're moving from place to place. >> yeah. >> charlie: once you decided, was it instant love, once you had a chance to go on stage and hear your voice and react to another character and say words and hear applause? >> right. it was pretty much -- you know, i couldn't do sports. i wasn't athletic. i didn't play an instrument.

there weren't any clubs that i was in. like i said, i read, pretty much. so, you know, you end up trying out for the school play. so then i did that and it was also something for some reason i could do. because i was, like, oh, other than school, seemed to be the one thing i could do, and people tend to be drawn toward the things that come easily to them. >> charlie: exactly right. because it came easily, i was, it's just, like, reading. i can do this. it was sort of one step after another and suddenly i'm, like, oh, i think i want to be an actor. just because i liked it. >> charlie: what's the best advice you ever got about acting? >> i'm trying to think, what's the best advice? just be persistent. it's not like what i heard. it's what i saw. >> charlie: be persistent in terms of learning more, getting the right roles, inhabiting more characters? >> just working. work, work, work. you know, take opportunities, just keep moving forward, because i notice the actors i

admired were always working and working in different genres and different places and nothing seemed to bother them and they just worked. >> charlie: i assumed meryl streep. who else? >> oh, gosh. well, i mean, meryl, meryl was on the cover of "time magazine" when i was a teenager. i held it up because i had a subscription. i showed my father. i said, you see this? i said, i want to be like her. she's an actress and on the cover of "time magazine." >> charlie: yeah. so, my gosh, meryl, i think vanessa redgrave. >> charlie: what's great about her and meryl, too, she's still doing it! >> that's what i mean! there's an example of someone like that who's worked from the time they were young and continues to work in tons of different venues. oh, my gosh, it's a great thing, you know. >> charlie: do you consider yourself a late bloomer at all, either in terms of not so much the skills but being appreciated

for the range because most people will say as one director said about you, you know, she brings intelligence, gravidas, and an inner self. that's the kind of thing they say about meryl streep, too. >> that's nice, thank you. >> charlie: but you also seem to have a wider range, a bigger canvas now. >> i think my career has always been incremental. i was talking to somebody the other day about when i did my first movie, which was 29. >> charlie: a soap opera. a soap opera. i did a lot of off off broadway, a lot of televisions, movies of the week, pilots. >> i don't care how cheap a psychology, i still hate these stupid cr flowers.

>> it was a big surge. >> charlie: in some ways that's great. >> it's like a mouse chewing through a wall one tiny bite at a time but eventually you've eaten the whole wall. >> charlie: it not only builds experience, it builds talent because you continue to learn and continue to be exposed to new ideas, new people. >> yep. >> charlie: all of that becomes a part of who you are. >> and there's nowhere to go. i mean, i always say that it's interesting about life and death and we're always in such a hurry, like, let's get to this part and that part. but if your hurry through it all -- >> charlie: you don't appreciate it. >> and you don't want to get to the very end. i think everything you have to do has to be something you're enjoying doing at the time. >> charlie: that's been true for you. >> it has been. just try to be in the place you're in. >> charlie: any direct regrets about it all? >> i sometimes regret that i

didn't go to graduate school for acting. >> reporter: like yale. like yale. i didn't go to juilliard or something. because i think, like, wow, that could have been -- i had a terrific undergrad education, and i thought that might be interesting to have a graduate education and have that more breadth of knowledge. >> charlie: but you look at this as something you will do for the rest of your life. >> yeah. >> charlie: there's no end point. it's a sense that it's fulfilling for you. >> right. >> charlie: and you continue to do it. >> yeah. >> charlie: hunger games: markinmockingjay and still alic. >> i just can't take it anymore, jacob, i'm so tired and it's so pathetic. >> charlie: the director -- he's a lovely person, very family oriented, highly intelligent amazingly prepared and incredibly precise about everything he does but so soft

spoken and really easy days and sometimes one or two takes. >> charlie: what i think would be great about being a director is if you've read a script you love is to see what an actor adds to your own sense of character because they had to whatever the script says with their own interpretation. >> my husband said something really interesting to me the other day. he says when an actor surprises you and you've written something and they start doing it, he said, you get so excited and you feel like they're holding dynamite. which i thought was a really wonderful way to put it. >> charlie: i heard mike nichols say what do you want from an actor and he answered the question by saying i want them to surprise me the same way i want my architect to surprise me. >> that's great. i think it's about creativity, and you want to have the shock of creativity. i have it when i work with another actor. they'll start doing a scene and maybe you don't know them and you walk in and they do something and you get all excited and you're, like, oh my

gosh! you know, watching what they do. >> charlie: nominated for an oscar four times. do you feel good about this film? >> yeah, i feel great. i feel really grad fide that people are so moved by it. that's what's been wonderful because that's what we wanted. you know, it's very human. we wanted people to feel its humanity. we wanted people to connect and understand and have seans of what this disease was like. >> charlie: let me do a round robin. say what comes out of your mind. self image. >> good. (laughter) >> charlie: obsessions. furniture. >> charlie: what are the earliest moments you remember? >> the first thing i remember is my mother told me i wasn't supposed to take off my shoes and go down this hill, we were living in panama, and i took off my shoes and ran down the hill and got a big sticker, like a

big, you know, thorn in it or something and i came running back up and asked to take it out of my foot. >> charlie: achievement. what's been the biggest achievement for you? i assume family. >> yeah, beyond family, i think my career. my family has been -- i can't believe i'm so lucky that i have this wonderful group of people around me. my husband and my two beautiful children. so, yeah, i think my -- i thank my stars for that every day. >> charlie: but career because it's something you made and created yourself? >> yeah. i have gone from being a kid who liked to read, who tried out for the school play and got parts -- felt lucky to get parts in a school

mother-daughter bond, what we're trying to communicate and how we miscommunicate early in the film, even though both are so well intentioned and you're watching them just miss each other. so it's not about them having a combative relationship. it's just about them somehow not seeing things the same way. but it's not for a lack of love and that's what you see, you watch these two people who are kind of like this, manage to come, you know, meet attend of the movie. >> charlie: if you weren't doing what you do, what would you do? can you imagine what profession might serve the same kind of --

>> creative -- well, that's the thing, being an actor. there's so much we get to experience. sometimes i think, well, what if i were a librarian, you know, would that be enough? it might be because of all the stories. we have access to all these stories. sometimes i think, you know, i love furniture, i love interior design, would have i liked that? i always thought i would have liked to be a doctor, the mystery of medicine, trying to figure something out. and then people, you talk to so many people. >> charlie: and you go to interesting places. >> yeah. >> charlie: you don't like to cook, though. >> no, bart does the cooking. he's cooking right now and i'm going to go home and eat. >> charlie: is he, really? yeah. but i clean. i do the cleaning. >> charlie: you do the laundry. >> the organizing. >> reporter: the family schedules and all that? >> yes, the doctors' appointments and this and that and the other thing, yeah. >> charlie: so if a young actress comes up to you and says

suppose you were giving a last lecture, what would you you want to say about acting, this profession that's been so interesting? >> well, i mean -- >> charlie: proceed with caution? >> yeah. >> charlie: you've got to love it to do it. >> actually, i always say to people, if you don't like the process of sitting down and doing the scenes and being on the set or being on stage or whatever, if you don't like the doing, don't do it, because there's nothing snells that's exactly right. somebody once said don't tell me that you want to be a writer. tell me you want to write. >> exactly! >> charlie: you want to be somebody. you want to do something. >> i know you can get so wrapped up in making stuff that you don't even know -- it's not even like you like the people watching, though we want people to watch, you just like the actual doing. i used to to have being in acting class. i loved rehearsal and that. i loved going to the film set in

the morning and seeing everybody and saying hello and having everybody kind of come together and bring their own expertise to something and figuring out and shooting the scene. i like all of it. i like that. afterwards, i sometimes don't even want to see it, because i just like doing it. >> charlie: how many times do you watch your best performances? >> twice at most. >> charlie: is that right? yeah. >> charlie: so if you know it's going to be on television or netflix, you're not going to say, i just want to see it one more time? >> no, and sometimes my family will see it and go, look, look! and i'm, like, turn it off! although every once in a while i'll see something, because i'm much older than when i started, i went to see a document riabout andre gregory and they had clips from 42nd street and there was a scene with me and wally shaw and i was, like, who was that? that was a long time ago. so just seeing how physically changed i was, that was

interesting. >> reporter: thank you for doing this. >> thank you for having me. fun to talk to you. thank you. >> charlie: robert battle is here, the artistic director of alvin ailey dance theater. the late alvin ailey founded the company in 1958. he was posthumously awarded the presidential medal of freedom last month. >> alvin ailey was born during the depression in a small town in texas and by the time he was 27 he had founded a dance company of his own in new york city. it became a place where artists of all races had a home, all that mattered was talent. the dances he choreographed were a blend of ballet, modern jazz and used blues as well and african-american history was told in a way it never had been before. the passionate performances that transfixed audiencens worldwide. >> charlie: performances in more than 70 countries. u.s. congress declared him cultural ambassador to the world

and will present 39 performances in its new season beginning december 23rd.

(technical difficulty) >> charlie: something tha there is something in the restrictions. i always say people, if they're shy, they end up being a great

public speaker. i think movement started with me as something urgent and necessary. but i have to say, though, it was through singing soprano when i was little,, and my mother played piano for church. that's where i learned to speak in front of people. which had to do poems on easter >> charlie: i like this my first poem actually was a lie. i was about this tiny, really tiny, and i had to stand up in my white suit and say my name is robert battle and i stand 6 feet tall and i just came to say happy easter day. (laughter) so there was something in that -- >> charlie: and you were about four feet or something. >> yeah, right. i was lying then. and then i studied martial arts because i grew up in a somewhat tough neighborhood, liberty city in miami, florida. and, so, i needed to learn how to defend myself. so i started taking martial arts which gave me a certain physical

confidence. and then i found dance through imitating michael jackson. my mother would watch old fred astaire and ginger rogers movies and i would imitate that. i always wanted to please my mother so part of the dancing came out of that and eventually found its way to my heart after i saw the alvin ailey american dance theater. >> charlie: what happened when you say that? >> i saw them when we were all bussed there. >> charlie: before juilliard? before. i'm still in miami going to high school, and we were bussed there the same way as now, we do outreach where if we're in a different city and young people are bussed from there, their schools to see a mini performance in the morning. and i sat in this darkened theater and my whole world was luminated when i saw revolutions. alvin ailey's masterpiece created. >> charlie: we'll see some of that later. >> yeah, and i saw that and i just knew that i had to follow this.

i didn't know i'd follow it all the way to new york and now to the helm of the company, but so be it. >> charlie: you said you knew you had to follow it. did you instantly try to set yourself on that course? >> partly by instinct, i think. i was already taking dance classes but it made me take it a little more seriously when i saw people on the stage who looked like me, a dance that had to do with my upbringing in the church and realized in movement, a dance that had to do with the history i was learning about my people. my mother had a group called the afro americans where they did poetry and song relating to the black experience so when i saw revelations, i felt like my life up till now was realized in that dance. so i think something about that drove me, and, so, juilliard came to do auditions and i auditioned. i got a full scholarship and went on to juilliard, and juilliard, which is on 65th, i

believe, the ailey company at that time was rehearsing on 61st street in amsterdam. so in the summer i would go and study at the ailey school in the summer program. so i was getting closer and closer to this vision that i had and then it just continued to grow that way. i ended up dancing with a smaller company after that, and -- called the parsons dance company. i started to choreograph for the second company, ailey two. judith jamison saw my work and asked me to do something for the first company and brought me back again and again and eventually asked me to take the company after she -- >> charlie: was what year when you first came in contact with them when you were at juilliard? >> this was 1990, '90, '91. >> charlie: so ailey had been dead about a year. >> yes. i just missed him, literally. >> charlie: but because of judith jamison and so much and ththe presidential medal of

freedom which you received posthumously you get to know about the work and the man. what was it about him lease emerged a sensational definer? >> i think he personified this notion of what we think of as the good of humanity. you know, he was a humanitarian. he was completely open, open to different languages, different sounds, different music, poetry, and open to the poetry in each individual. he was all about giving, an opportunity to express themselves and there was something valid and freeing in that. he made ate repertory company when he first started. these days it's not just the choreography and one person, but he had that as a vision early on i think because he was all about opportunity. this company, when we think about arts and education, before

it became somewhat of a buzzward to raise funds, it was a mission for alvin ailey that everybody had a seat at the table. he wanted this to connect with all people's that it wasn't a highbrow art form. he believed in that and i believe that spirit judith jamison carried. >> charlie: and you carry. yes. >> charlie: there have been only three. alvin, judith and you. >> amazing. >> charlie: this is judith jamison talking about alvin ailey and revolutions. this is back in 2008 at this very table. here it is. >> it was to celebrate the african-american culture. experienced in the modern day of this country. that rolls off my tongue very easily but that's exactly what it is. he was specific about what we were supposed to be about that it became universal and we see a work like revelations which i know you've seen, one of our

classic works, butio i so it and realize revelations is about all of us, not just the african-american experience, but all of us. it's about childhood relations, life, death, hope, spirit, joy, all of that, and alvin ailey encompassed the fact that dance should be something more than just the performance, but that it should be inclusive. so we include you. but we should be responsible to the people whom we serve. to the communities we serve around the world. >> charlie: tell us about revelations, and why it is such a huge piece of work. >> i think so much i think that is in great art is this notion of trying to express a personal experience that through this masterpiece turned out to be a universal expression that had to do with hope. i think it was very significant that he used spirituals, you

know, that was called negro spirituals. of course, we don't always say that, but that's the truth. but those songs were more than just songs. i think they were political. they were, of course, social. they spoke of triumph over despair. but also i think there was something important in that because you think about the civil rights movement or before the civil rights movement, to identify with these songs, some of the people who committed some of the atrocities of oppression would call themselves christian. so i think there was something about these spirituals and seeing these people who were african-american identify with their own christianity or spirituality that had to do with recognizing that i'm human, too. >> charlie: it's interesting that the presidential medal of freedom was awarded to alvin

ailey and, at the same time, to the three civil rights workers who had been killed so brutally in mississippi, posthumously as well. >> yes. and how significant was that for me that moment. i think about revelations. i think i had my own revelation standing there, receiving this award on mr. ailey's behalf. of course, looking at president obama, who is african-american, the first black president. i thought of the man who raised me, my great uncle willie horn, born 1904, died my second year of juilliard, i think of segregation, some of the things he experienced i looked out and looked at judith jamison who meant so much to little black girls who wanted to dance, there was something so significant about that moment it was

overwhelming. >> charlie: lik take a look at this. this is revelations. you don't need the say anything. you feel it all. here it is. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> charlie: you have said that seeing revelations is as important as knowing who martin luther king was. >> mm-hmm. >> charlie: these are two essential things. >> yes. >> charlie: to understand america. >> absolutely. i think about martin luther king, i think about his i have a dream speech. i think about what he was really doing in that speech was holding, as mr. ailey said, and what he tried to do with his own work is hold up a mirror to our society so people could see how beautiful they are. i think there's something in revelations that does that. when i specially became artistic director, we were on tour in russia, and i had never been to russia and certainly not with the american dance theater. and there we are in one of these wonderful old theaters, and you

feel so far away from home, and then the curtain goes up on revelations, and by the time we hit rock my soul in the bosom of abraham, you see russian people in the aisles dancing and fraying to and froe and on beat, too, i might add, there's something about that that lets us know we're more alike than unalike. >> charlie: you said about revelations it's really about everything that the human being endures. >> yes, yes, absolutely. you know, it starts with i have been rebuked and scorned. who wasn't felt that in some way? we have something called in our arts and education program, we have something called the revelations curriculum where we use revelations as a way to look at, you know, english and social studies and humanities. so sometimes we have -- using i

have been' buked, i have been scorned, we use somebody who's never studied dance and they use their own words, i have been dissed. so no matter what your religion, your color or street across the ocean, people connect to that humanity. >> charlie: this is odetteta. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ this little light of mine ♪ i'm going to let it shine >> charlie: you took over three years ago. >> yes. >> charlie: is it mission different or does it simply build on the tradition that's been created? >> it builds on the tradition, the tradition of always discovering new voices. celebrating our history, celebrating the history of modern dance, and then giving opportunity to these marvelous dancers to do their stuff, if you will. so mr. ailey sort of laid it out in the beginning and it still works. you know, so -- and that way, for judith jamison and myself, she always says we're standing on shoulders and it feels that way. >> charlie: how is she? she is great. she is divine. >> charlie: all that. absolutely. we do revelations live, having

it sung live for a few of the performances. so she was just at city center rehearsing with the musicians and singers. >> charlie: you've said, i'm interested in your conversations around how we view these dancers and their abilities. >> yes. >> charlie: you know, looking at people who come to the theater. >> yes, absolutely. and i think i try that with certain choices that i make for the repertory. for instance, this season, it starts tomorrow. >> charlie: yes. this season bringing in european choreographer schecter, his work will be new to the company, and it will sort of shed a different light on what these dancers are capable of. i love things that are outside of the box, unexpected. you don't have the last name battle and not have something unexpected every now and then. >> charlie: yeah.

that's been fun for me because these dancers can do almost anything. i watch them in the studio, when the audience doesn't get to see the amount of rigor it takes to do what they do to produce that amount of grace, so i'm driven by these magnificent dancers. >> charlie: this is something you choreographed yourself. >> mm-hmm. ♪ ♪

♪ >> charlie: where did that come from in your head? >> imcame from a lack of space, not in my head, but i made it in a living room in queens many, many years ago and so that's why most of the dance doesn't travel and now it traveled all over the world because of the alvin ailey american dance theater. gosh, somebody handed me this music, a cassette tape of this music by sheila shandra and i just thought it was so incredible. of course, i've always admired indian dance. it's so complex and communicative, and, so, that's what it reminded me of.

listening to this also reminded me of ella fitzgerald. i love jazz and ella and scatting. it's a different version of scatting syllables. i can hear words in these syllables that seemed to not say anything. i could hear it, you know, so i was trying to interpret that. but in this dance, i see all of those things i talked about. i see the martial arts. i see the influence of michael jackson. you know, i see the influence of singing. sometimes the mouth is moving or the eyes. so that was the inspiration for that dance. >> charlie: much success to you. >> thank you very much. >> charlie: we've had on this program a long association with alvin ailey and the theater company in terms of shows we've done and judith being here. it's a great pleasure. i'm sorry alvin ailey didn't live to see the idea that the president of the united states, an african-american, would put around his neck the highest honor that this country can give. >> yes.

>> charlie: so thank you. thank you. >> charlie: thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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